Award Demonstrates University Hospital of Brooklyn’s Commitment to Quality Care for
Stroke Patients

Brooklyn, NY – SUNY Downstate Medical Center’s University Hospital of Brooklyn has received the
American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke
Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award with Target: StrokeSM Honor Roll Elite. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment and success ensuring
that stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally
recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.

To receive the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award, hospitals must achieve 85 percent
or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for
two or more consecutive 12-month periods and achieve 75 percent or higher compliance
with five of eight Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality measures.

To qualify for the Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite, hospitals must meet quality measures
developed to reduce the time between the patient’s arrival at the hospital and treatment
with the clot-buster tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, the only drug approved
by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat ischemic stroke. If given intravenously
in the first three hours after the start of stroke symptoms, tPA has been shown to
significantly reduce the effects of stroke and lessen the chance of permanent disability.
University Hospital of Brooklyn earned the award by meeting specific quality achievement
measures for the diagnosis and treatment of stroke patients at a set level for a designated
period.

These quality measures are designed to help hospital teams provide the most up-to-date,
evidence-based guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and
disability for stroke patients.

“It has often been said that with a stroke, time lost is brain lost, and this award
demonstrates our commitment to ensuring patients receive care based on nationally-respected
clinical guidelines,” said John F. Williams, Jr., MD, EdD, MPH, FCCM, president of
SUNY Downstate Medical Center. “University Hospital of Brooklyn is dedicated to improving
the quality of stroke care and the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s
Get With The Guidelines-Stroke helps us achieve that goal.”

“We are pleased to recognize University Hospital of Brooklyn for their commitment
to stroke care,” said Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, national chairman of the Get With
The Guidelines steering committee and executive director of Interventional Cardiovascular
Programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical
School. “Studies have shown that hospitals that consistently follow Get With The Guidelines
quality improvement measures can reduce length of stay and 30-day readmission rates
and reduce disparities in care.”

For providers, Get With The Guidelines-Stroke offers quality improvement measures,
discharge protocols, standing orders and other measurement tools. Providing hospitals
with resources and information that make it easier to follow treatment guidelines
can help save lives and ultimately reduce overall healthcare costs by lowering readmission
rates for stroke patients.

For patients, Get With The Guidelines-Stroke uses the “teachable moment,” the time
soon after a patient has had a stroke, when they learn how to manage their risk factors
while still in the hospital and recognize the F.A.S.T. warning signs of a stroke:
Face drooping; Arm weakness; Speech difficulty; and Time to call 9-1-1.

According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke is
the number five cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United
States. On average, someone suffers a stroke every 40 seconds; someone dies of a stroke
every four minutes; and 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year.

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About SUNY Downstate Medical Center

SUNY Downstate Medical Center, founded in 1860, was the first medical school in the
United States to bring teaching out of the lecture hall and to the patient’s bedside.
A center of innovation and excellence in research and clinical service delivery, SUNY
Downstate Medical Center comprises a College of Medicine, College of Nursing, School
of Health Professions, a School of Graduate Studies, School of Public Health, University
Hospital of Brooklyn, and a multifaceted biotechnology initiative including the Downstate
Biotechnology Incubator and BioBAT for early-stage and more mature companies, respectively.

SUNY Downstate ranks twelfth nationally in the number of alumni who are on the faculty
of American medical schools. More physicians practicing in New York City have graduated
from SUNY Downstate than from any other medical school.